ABC News in the US and Channel 7 in Australia recently visited Hudson Bay, Canada with WWF’s Tonje Folkestad. They were filming the work of polar bear scientist Nick Lunn for tv features on the impact of climate change on polar bears.

As the sea ice melts earlier each spring and forms later each autumn in Hudson Bay, the season when bears can hunt for food on the sea ice becomes ever smaller, and they start to starve.

Between1987 and 2004, the Hudson Bay population dropped from 1200 to 930 or roughly 22 percent.

The research by Dr Lunn, featured in the linked video clips, is part funded by WWF.

Dr Lunn began working with polar bears in 1981. For over a decade, he has worked with the Canadian Wildlife Service focussing on the condition of the Western Hudson Bay population of polar bears in relation to environmental change.